Background/Objective: Historically, fasting has been practiced not only for medical but also for religious reasons. Bahá’ís follow an annual religious intermittent dry fast of 19 days. We inquired into motivation behind and subjective health impacts of Bahá’í fasting. Methods: A convergent parallel mixed methods design was embedded in a clinical single arm observational study. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted before (n = 7), during (n = 8), and after fasting (n = 8). Three months after the fasting period, two focus group interviews were conducted (n = 5/n = 3). A total of 146 Bahá’í volunteers answered an online survey at five time points before, during, and after fasting. Results: Fasting was found to play a central role for the religiosity of interviewees, implying changes in daily structures, spending time alone, engaging in religious practices, and experiencing social belonging. Results show an increase in mindfulness and well-being, which were accompanied by behavioural changes and experiences of self-efficacy and inner freedom. Survey scores point to an increase in mindfulness and well-being during fasting, while stress, anxiety, and fatigue decreased. Mindfulness remained elevated even three months after the fast. Conclusion: Bahá’í fasting seems to enhance participants’ mindfulness and well-being, lowering stress levels and reducing fatigue. Some of these effects lasted more than three months after fasting.

Background: Increasingly, parents use child health promotion apps to find health information. An overview of child health promotion apps for parents currently does not exist. The scope of child health topics addressed by parent apps is thus needed, including how they are evaluated. Objective: This scoping review aims to describe existing reported mobile health (mHealth) parent apps of middle- to high-income countries that promote child health. The focus centers on apps developed in the last 5 years, showing how the reported apps are evaluated, and listing reported outcomes found. Methods: A scoping review was conducted according to PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews) guidelines to identify parent apps or web-based programs on child health promotion published between January 2016 and June 2021 in 5 databases: PubMed, ERIC, IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Separate sources were sought through an expert network. Included studies were summarized and analyzed through a systematic and descriptive content analysis, including keywords, year of publication, country of origin, aims/purpose, study population/sample size, intervention type, methodology/method(s), broad topic(s), evaluation, and study outcomes. Results: In total, 39 studies met the inclusion criteria from 1040 database and 60 expert-identified studies. Keywords reflected the health topics and app foci. About 64% (25/39) of included studies were published after 2019 and most stemmed from the United States, Australian, and European-based research. Studies aimed to review or evaluate apps or conducted app-based study interventions. The number of participants ranged from 7 to 1200. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used. Interventions included 28 primary studies, 6 app feasibility studies, and 5 app or literature reviews. Eight separate topics were found: parental feeding and nutrition, physical activity, maternal-child health, parent-child health, healthy environment, dental health, mental health, and sleep. Study intervention evaluations cited behavior change theories in 26 studies and evaluations were carried out with a variety of topic-specific, adapted, self-developed, or validated questionnaires and evaluation tools. To evaluate apps, user input and qualitative evaluations were often combined with surveys and frequently rated with the Mobile App Rating Scale. Outcomes reported some positive effects, while several intervention studies saw no effect at all. Effectively evaluating changes in behavior through apps, recruiting target groups, and retaining app engagement were challenges cited. Conclusions: New parents are a key target group for child health apps, but evaluating child health promotion apps remains a challenge. Whether tailored to parent needs or adapted to the specific topic, apps should be rooted in a transparent theoretical groundwork. Applicable lessons for parent apps from existing research are to tailor app content, include intuitive and adaptive features, and embed well-founded parameters for long-term effect evaluation on child health promotion.

Background: Explanatory models represent patient understanding of etiology, pathophysiology, illness, symptoms, and treatments, but little attention has been paid to how they are used by patients “at risk” for future disease. Objective: The aims of this study were to elucidate what constitutes an explanatory model of risk and to describe explanatory models of risk related to developing breast cancer. Methods: Thirty qualitative interviews with women identified as at an increased risk for breast cancer were conducted. Interviews were coded to identify domains of explanatory models of risk using a priori codes derived from the explanatory model of illness framework. Within each domain, a grounded thematic analysis described participants’ explanatory models related to breast cancer risk. Results: The domains of treatment and etiology remained similar in a risk context compared with illness, whereas course of illness, symptoms, and pathophysiology differed. We identified a new, integrative concept relative to other domains within explanatory models of risk: social comparisons, which was dominant in risk perhaps due to the lack of physical experiences associated with being “at risk.” Conclusions: Developing inclusive understandings of risk and its treatment is key to developing a framework for the care of high-risk patients that is both evidence based and sensitive to patient preferences. Implications for Practice: The concept of “social comparisons” can assist healthcare providers in understanding women’s decision making under conditions of risk. Ensuring that healthcare providers understand patient perceptions of risk is important because it relates to patient decision making, particularly due to an increasing focus on risk assessment in cancer.

Introduction: Essential oil (EO) applications via inhalation and/or absorption through the skin—often referred to as aromatherapy—have particular relevance as complementary to cancer treatment and follow-up care. Aromatherapy is of particular interest for controlling symptoms and enhancing the general well-being of people with cancer. This is indicated by the increasing number of empirical studies on this topic. Although numerous reviews have summarized the extensive primary research about aromatherapy and cancer, no review on aromatherapy use targeting women with gynecologic and breast cancers currently exists. Our scoping review aims at giving an overview of the state of research about aromatherapy in this specific target group. By summarizing and describing study characteristics, based on methodological decisions and content, we intend to offer implications for future research, focused on the use of EO in women with gynecologic and breast cancers. Methods: A systematic scoping review was conducted, based on the literature, and using the extension of the PRISMA statement for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR). The databases PubMed and CINHAHL were searched in a multi-stage, iterative process taking the most relevant terms under consideration, given our research interest and Boolean operators. The included studies were analyzed and summarized through (1) a table matrix including categories of interest and (2) qualitative content analysis. Results: One hundred seventy studies were examined, and 10 were included in this review. They show high heterogeneity in how the term aromatherapy is defined, in content, research design, EO used, application, and outcomes. However, all 10 studies exclusively targeted women with breast cancer in different states of cancer treatment. Conclusions: Challenges of research within this field point to the heterogeneous use and classification of the term aromatherapy, the differentiation of the principle of action of EO, the lack of transparency in how EO are reported and described (e.g., botanical names, company, dosage, mixing ratios), and the need to include subjective perceptions. Ten implications for future research based on these challenges are given.

Dental fear and anxiety (DFA) is known as an immense challenge in oral healthcare, which can result in compromised oral health, pain, and uncomfortable treatment. The objective of this study was to analyze the effect of essential-oil vaporization on acute anxiety of patients in dental practices. Four dental practices used five weekly cycles of vaporization with each scent: Orange (Citrus sinensis), Swiss Pine (Pinus cembra), Good Mood (blended essential oils: Citrus sinensis, Citrus aurantifolia, Citrus limon, Osmanthus fragrance (5%)), Forest Walk (blended essential oils: Abies grandis, Pinus cembra, Myrtus communis c. t. 1,8-cineol, Abies alba, Citrus paradisi, Abies sibirica, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Vetiveria zizanoides), and water. Acute anxiety was the primary outcome (state-trait-anxiety inventory (STAI-S)). Secondary outcomes were trait anxiety (STAI-T), dental anxiety (Kleinknecht dental fear survey), and pain perception in treatment (numeric rating scale). Across all patients (n = 486), STAI-S was slightly higher in the control group (40.7 ± 11.6) than in the intervention groups (38.4 ± 10.5). Post-hoc analyses revealed that the effect is only robust for the subgroup of female patients (n = 296, p = 0.044). We also conducted a post-hoc additional analysis on a subpopulation with an increased level of STAI-T ≥ 42 (n = 131 patients). For this group the difference in acute anxiety between the control group (51.1 ± 11.9, n = 30) vs. the intervention groups (46.8 ± 9.6, n = 118) was significant (T = 4.39, p = 0.0379). The results of the study indicate a promising potential of essential-oil vaporization to alleviate dental anxiety, particularly in the subgroups of patients with a high level of trait anxiety, and particularly in female patients. The calming effects of the essential-oil vaporization were also highlighted by the anecdotical statements of the dental-practice staff. The anxiety-reducing role of essential-oil vaporization alone and as one part of combined techniques to counter DFA should be further explored using multi-perspective methodological approaches in research.